School, Sleepovers, Red Carpet Dreams

By JESSICA PRESSLER

Published: February 12, 2006

WHEN Addison Timlin was 8 years old, she persuaded her parents to take her to Manhattan from their home in Quakertown, Pa., for an audition for ''Annie.'' Her parents did their best to make it a low-pressure event.

''They were like, 'Oh, we'll go to New York, we'll go shopping, we'll go see the Rockettes, and also you can do your audition,' '' said Addison, now 14, on a recent afternoon. ''But I was very serious about it. I was three feet tall, and I was, like, focused.''

She got the part, and after a couple of years when she was in ''like literally every professional production of 'Annie' on the planet,'' got an agent and a role in the Broadway production of ''Gypsy,'' her mother decided to move with her four children to Manhattan so her youngest daughter could pursue her career.

''At that point, it was, like, O.K., this actually might work out,'' said Jayne Timlin, who was by then divorced from Addison's father. The family lived off Addison's $70,000 Broadway salary until Jayne Timlin found a job as an assistant at a mortgage firm. Ms. Timlin is not, Addison said, ''a classic stage mom.'' In fact she still seems slightly befuddled by the experience. ''There was no stopping her,'' Ms. Timlin said, looking at Addison.

Addison, whose small size (five feet) belies her large ambition, smiled at that. But the road has been bumpy. Her brother and sisters had a difficult time adjusting to the move. ''They would get, like, 'It's all your fault we're here and away from our friends and our dad,' '' she said. ''But now they love New York.''

Shuttling among the Professional Performing Arts School in Manhattan, acting classes, auditions and Lamaze classes, which she attends with her pregnant 21-year-old sister, Keely, Addison teeters between the relatively normal life of a teenager in New York City and the obligations and preoccupations of the almost famous.

Her first feature film, ''Derailed,'' in which she played Clive Owen's diabetic daughter, opened nationwide in December. Though in the movie she wore pigtails and pancake makeup to look younger, at the premiere she wore a strapless dress on loan from Betsey Johnson and had her hair and makeup professionally styled.

At one point, she said, Jennifer Aniston, the film's star, wrapped an arm around her and, like a celebrity fairy godmother, told Addison she thought she would go very far, and to ''stay grounded.''

''She was sooo nice,'' Addison said.

''The next day in the paper there was a gossip item that said, 'Jennifer Aniston and Clive Owen were out partying together' or something, and it had a picture of them holding hands. But it was a still from the movie. I was, like: 'Hello! They're acting!' ''

As it is for most teenagers, fame is a fantasy. But for Addison it's also a possibility, and the current crop of celebrities are like the wise elders of the tribe. Even celebrity's casualties provide lessons. ''I read with her for 'Gypsy,' '' she said, watching Melanie Griffith onstage during the Golden Globes awards show. ''She was so weird.''

On weekends Addison, who has highlights in her long brown hair and wears an armload of bangles, often has sleepovers with her friends Stephanie Branco, 15 (known as Feeni), and Julianna Rose Mauriello, 14. ''Every time Feeni sleeps over my house,'' Addison said, ''we make this instant Thai food, and we eat that with chocolate milk. And then we make the comfiest bed, and then we just talk, like, about our future. And it's like, 'Oh, my God, our future.' ''

''That's, like, every weekend,'' confirmed Stephanie one afternoon as she and Addison drank lattes at Starbucks. Stephanie is also a student at the Professional Performing Arts School but doesn't plan to work until she gets older. Addison calls her the ''Colombian Salma Hayek.''

''When I sleep at your house, we do the same thing,'' Julianna said to Addison, sipping her eggnog latte. ''But we eat waffles.''

Addison's world is peopled with working actors who, like her, straddle the line between tween and teenager, who aren't quite stars but aspire to a place in the firmament. Fifteen-year-old Andrea Bowen, who plays Teri Hatcher's daughter on ''Desperate Housewives,'' is a good friend. Aleisha Allen, 14, who had a small part in ''School of Rock'' and starred with Ice Cube in ''Are We There Yet?'' is a classmate.

Like Addison, they are in a sort of incubation period, waiting for the break that may or may not come, waiting to get older so that they can audition for bigger, juicier roles. A benefit Addison attended at the DKNY store on Madison Avenue in December was a who's who of the almost famous. ''There's the girl who played the mini Jennifer Lopez in 'Jersey Girl,' she is sooo cute,'' Addison said.

Bubbly and friendly, Addison is kind of a socialite, although in this world there is less air-kissing and more jumping up and down.

''Wouldn't it be so cool if Dakota Fanning walked in right now?'' she whispered, before making a beeline for Liam Aiken, the broody 16-year-old star of the Lemony Snicket movie and the most famous person in the room. (Their relationship would later be documented on the Almost Famous version of the tabloids: the Internet Movie Database message boards. ''I hear Liam has a crush on Addison,'' read a post).